123-596: Pomerania ( Polish : Pomorze [pɔˈmɔʐɛ] ; German : Pommern [ˈpɔmɐn] ; Pòmòrskô ; Swedish : Pommern ) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe , split between Poland and Germany . The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian , Pomeranian and Kuyavian-Pomeranian voivodeships of Poland, while
246-751: A euroregion since 1995. The Pomerania euroregion comprises Hither Pomerania and Uckermark in Germany, West Pomerania in Poland, and Scania in Sweden. In Lechitic languages the prefix "po-" means along ; unlike the word "po", which means after . Pomorze , therefore, means Along the Sea . This construction is similar to toponyms Pogórze ( Along the Mountains ), Polesie ( Along the Forest ), Porzecze ( Along
369-499: A / (spelled a ), / ɔ / (spelled o ) and / u / (spelled u and ó as separate letters). The nasal vowels are / ɛ w̃ / (spelled ę ) and / ɔ w̃ / (spelled ą ). Unlike Czech or Slovak, Polish does not retain phonemic vowel length — the letter ó , which formerly represented lengthened /ɔː/ in older forms of the language, is now vestigial and instead corresponds to /u/. The Polish consonant system shows more complexity: its characteristic features include
492-662: A consequence, the term "West Pomerania" is ambiguous, since it may refer to either Hither Pomerania (in German usage and historical usage based on German terminology), or to combined Hither and Farther Pomerania (in Polish usage and historical usage based on German terminology). In parallel, the term "East Pomerania" may similarly carry different meanings, referring either to Farther Pomerania (in German usage and historical usage based on German terminology), or to Pomerelia (in Polish usage and historical usage based on German terminology). As
615-718: A dialect of Polish. Many Silesians consider themselves a separate ethnicity and have been advocating for the recognition of Silesian as a regional language in Poland . The law recognizing it as such was passed by the Sejm and Senate in April 2024, but has been vetoed by President Andrzej Duda in late May of 2024. According to the last official census in Poland in 2011, over half a million people declared Silesian as their native language. Many sociolinguists (e.g. Tomasz Kamusella , Agnieszka Pianka, Alfred F. Majewicz, Tomasz Wicherkiewicz ) assume that extralinguistic criteria decide whether
738-669: A few culturally and linguistically related tribes from the basins of the Vistula and Oder before eventually accepting baptism in 966. With Western Christianity , Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet , which made it possible to write down Polish, which until then had existed only as a spoken language . The closest relatives of Polish are the Elbe and Baltic Sea Lechitic dialects ( Polabian and Pomeranian varieties). All of them, except Kashubian , are extinct. The precursor to modern Polish
861-417: A further complication, the borders of the eponymous administrative units have been drawn disregarding mostly the historical ones. The Polish unit called województwo zachodniopomorskie ( West Pomeranian Voivodeship ) includes the whole Polish part of Hither Pomerania, but only the western two-thirds of Farther Pomerania, with the remaining easternmost one-third ( Słupsk , Ustka , and Miastko ) has been part of
984-450: A further regional unit, in this case bearing a name accurately reflecting historical heterogeneity of its territory. Similarity but to lesser extent, borders of the combined German districts Vorpommern-Rügen and Vorpommern-Greifswald deviate significantly in numerous locations from the historical ones with Mecklenburg and Brandenburg . As a consequence, the common understanding of the terms has started to be used more and more frequently in
1107-467: A large number of branches in all of these areas) offers services available in Polish at all of their cash machines in addition to English and Spanish . According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England and Wales who consider Polish to be their "main" language. In Canada , there is a significant Polish Canadian population : There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to
1230-543: A lect is an independent language or a dialect: speakers of the speech variety or/and political decisions, and this is dynamic (i.e. it changes over time). Also, research organizations such as SIL International and resources for the academic field of linguistics such as Ethnologue , Linguist List and others, for example the Ministry of Administration and Digitization recognized the Silesian language. In July 2007,
1353-454: A nasal consonant, rather than a nasal vowel. For example, ą in dąb ("oak") is pronounced [ɔm] , and ę in tęcza ("rainbow") is pronounced [ɛn] (the nasal assimilates to the following consonant). When followed by l or ł (for example przyjęli , przyjęły ), ę is pronounced as just e . When ę is at the end of the word it is often pronounced as just [ɛ] . Depending on
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#17327654901101476-402: A reversed diacritic hook called an ogonek . Polish is a synthetic and fusional language which has seven grammatical cases . It has fixed penultimate stress and an abundance of palatal consonants . Contemporary Polish developed in the 1700s as the successor to the medieval Old Polish (10th–16th centuries) and Middle Polish (16th–18th centuries). Among the major languages, it
1599-491: A single word. This applies in particular to many combinations of preposition plus a personal pronoun, such as do niej ('to her'), na nas ('on us'), prze ze mnie ('because of me'), all stressed on the bolded syllable. The Polish alphabet derives from the Latin script but includes certain additional letters formed using diacritics . The Polish alphabet was one of three major forms of Latin-based orthography developed for Western and some South Slavic languages,
1722-442: A small part of Pomerelia ( Biały Bór ); in turn the other one comprises only approximately northern two-thirds of Pomerelia but also parts of historical Malbork Land and Upper Prussia known under the ethnographic designation of Powiśle and constituting the westernmost strip of historical Prussia ; and finally, the remaining one third of Pomerelia forms part of województwo kujawsko-pomorskie ( Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship ),
1845-405: A verse by Jan Brzechwa ) is W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie [fʂt͡ʂɛbʐɛˈʂɨɲɛ ˈxʂɔw̃ʂt͡ʂ ˈbʐmi fˈtʂt͡ɕiɲɛ] ('In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reed'). Unlike languages such as Czech, Polish does not have syllabic consonants – the nucleus of a syllable is always a vowel. The consonant /j/ is restricted to positions adjacent to a vowel. It also cannot precede
1968-478: A vowel when it precedes another vowel (it represents /j/ , palatalization of the preceding consonant, or both depending on analysis). Also the letters u and i sometimes represent only semivowels when they follow another vowel, as in autor /ˈawtɔr/ ('author'), mostly in loanwords (so not in native nauka /naˈu.ka/ 'science, the act of learning', for example, nor in nativized Mateusz /maˈte.uʂ/ 'Matthew'). Some loanwords , particularly from
2091-711: Is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group within the Indo-European language family written in the Latin script . It is primarily spoken in Poland and serves as the official language of the country, as well as the language of the Polish diaspora around the world. In 2024, there were over 39.7 million Polish native speakers. It ranks as the sixth most-spoken among languages of the European Union . Polish
2214-419: Is also spoken as a second language in eastern Germany , northern Czech Republic and Slovakia , western parts of Belarus and Ukraine as well as in southeast Lithuania and Latvia . Because of the emigration from Poland during different time periods, most notably after World War II , millions of Polish speakers can also be found in countries such as Canada , Argentina , Brazil , Israel , Australia ,
2337-432: Is alternatively known as Pomerelia , consisting of four sub-regions: Kashubia inhabited by ethnic Kashubians , Kociewie , Tuchola Forest and Chełmno Land . Pomerania has a relatively low population density , with its largest cities being Gdańsk and Szczecin . Outside its urban areas, it is characterized by farmland, dotted with numerous lakes, forests, and small towns. In the west of Pomerania lie several islands,
2460-427: Is most closely related to Slovak and Czech but differs in terms of pronunciation and general grammar. Additionally, Polish was profoundly influenced by Latin and other Romance languages like Italian and French as well as Germanic languages (most notably German ), which contributed to a large number of loanwords and similar grammatical structures. Extensive usage of nonstandard dialects has also shaped
2583-447: Is possible to say ko goście zoba czy li? – here kogo retains its usual stress (first syllable) in spite of the attachment of the clitic. Reanalysis of the endings as inflections when attached to verbs causes the different colloquial stress patterns. These stress patterns are considered part of a "usable" norm of standard Polish - in contrast to the "model" ("high") norm. Some common word combinations are stressed as if they were
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#17327654901102706-595: Is subdivided into regional dialects and maintains strict T–V distinction pronouns, honorifics , and various forms of formalities when addressing individuals. The traditional 32-letter Polish alphabet has nine additions ( ą , ć , ę , ł , ń , ó , ś , ź , ż ) to the letters of the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet , while removing three (x, q, v). Those three letters are at times included in an extended 35-letter alphabet. The traditional set comprises 23 consonants and 9 written vowels , including two nasal vowels ( ę , ą ) defined by
2829-524: Is the Old Polish language . Ultimately, Polish descends from the unattested Proto-Slavic language. The Book of Henryków (Polish: Księga henrykowska , Latin : Liber fundationis claustri Sanctae Mariae Virginis in Heinrichau ), contains the earliest known sentence written in the Polish language: Day, ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai (in modern orthography: Daj, uć ja pobrusza, a ti pocziwaj ;
2952-529: Is the most widely-used minority language in Lithuania's Vilnius County , by 26% of the population, according to the 2001 census results, as Vilnius was part of Poland from 1922 until 1939. Polish is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. In Ukraine, it is most common in the western parts of Lviv and Volyn Oblasts , while in West Belarus it is used by the significant Polish minority, especially in
3075-430: The kropka (superior dot) over the letter ż , and the ogonek ("little tail") under the letters ą, ę . The letters q, v, x are used only in foreign words and names. Polish orthography is largely phonemic —there is a consistent correspondence between letters (or digraphs and trigraphs ) and phonemes (for exceptions see below). The letters of the alphabet and their normal phonemic values are listed in
3198-401: The ś in święty ("holy") all represent the sound / ɕ / . The exceptions to the above rule are certain loanwords from Latin, Italian, French, Russian or English—where s before i is pronounced as s , e.g. sinus , sinologia , do re mi fa sol la si do , Saint-Simon i saint-simoniści , Sierioża , Siergiej , Singapur , singiel . In other loanwords
3321-462: The Lebensraum policy. The Stutthof concentration camp with numerous subcamps was located in the region. There were also numerous Nazi prisons, forced labour camps, and multiple prisoner-of-war camps , including the large Stalag II-B and Stalag II-D , for Polish, French , Belgian, Dutch, Serbian, Italian , American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander and other Allied POWs. Połczyn-Zdrój
3444-596: The Brest and Grodno regions and in areas along the Lithuanian border. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries. In the United States , Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. According to the 2000 United States Census , 667,414 Americans of age five years and over reported Polish as
3567-455: The Communist regimes implemented during the post-war era; since then, Pomerania is democratically governed . Pomeranian dialect and traditions still live in the country of Brazil in a colony where the language is still spoken. The arrival of Pomerania immigrants with Germans and Italians helped form the state of Espírito Santo since the early 1930s. Their importance and respect are one of
3690-787: The Duchy of Pomerania (western part), as a vassal state of Poland, became Christian under saint Otto of Bamberg ( the Apostle of the Pomeranians ); at the same time Pomerelia (eastern part) became a part of diocese of Włocławek within Poland. Since the late 12th-early 13th century, the Griffin Duchy of Pomerania stayed with the Holy Roman Empire and the Principality of Rugia with Denmark, while Pomerelia, under
3813-674: The Gestapo carried out arrests of Polish leaders, activists, entrepreneurs, and even some staff of the Consulate of Poland in Szczecin. In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland starting World War II . The first battle of the war, at Westerplatte , was fought in the region. Afterwards the Polish part of Pomerania was annexed by Germany, and made part of the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia . The Nazis deported
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3936-646: The Kashubians in Pomerelia . In the German part of Pomerania, Standard German dominates. The historical German dialects of Pomerania are, however, Low German . The Pomeranian dialects were all part of the East Low German subgroup: Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch in the west, Central Pomeranian (Mittelpommersch) in Central Pomerania around Szczecin (then Stettin), and East Pomeranian in
4059-560: The Little Kashubian Tricity with a population of 120,158 people (2012), formed by the City of Wejherowo (population 50,310 in 2012) and the towns (urban gminas) of Rumia (population 49,230 in 2020) and Reda (population 26,011 in 2019). The area also includes two smaller towns of Żukowo and Pruszcz Gdański belonging to the eponymous urban-rural gminas, and a number of rural gminas. Altogether, there are 16 cities in
4182-1034: The National Museum in Szczecin , the Museum of the Puck Region , and the Museum of Maritime Fisheries in Świnoujście. Other notable museums include the Museum of the National Anthem ( Muzeum Hymnu Narodowego ) in Będomin at the birthplace of Józef Wybicki , author of the lyrics of the national anthem of Poland , and the Copernicus House in Toruń , birthplace of famed astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus . The Diocesan Museum in Pelplin contains one of
4305-777: The Oder river south of Gartz and followed the Oder to the Warta confluence to include Cedynia . In the South, the diocese border ran immediately north of the Warthe to include Gorzów and Myślibórz . The southeastern border left the Warthe area with a sharp turn running straight north to Drawsko Pomorskie , then turned eastwards south of the town to include Czaplinek . Then, after a southeast turn, it turned northeast towards Bytów . The eastern border ran east of Bytów and west of Lębork to meet
4428-666: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth 's influence gave Polish the status of lingua franca in Central and Eastern Europe . The process of standardization began in the 14th century and solidified in the 16th century during the Middle Polish era. Standard Polish was based on various dialectal features, with the Greater Poland dialect group serving as the base. After World War II , Standard Polish became
4551-566: The Pomeranian Lake District . The soil is generally rather poor, sometimes sandy or marshy. The western coastline is jagged, with many peninsulas (such as Darß – Zingst ) and islands (including Rügen , Usedom , and Wolin ) enclosing numerous bays ( Bodden ) and lagoons (the biggest being the Lagoon of Szczecin ). The eastern coastline is smooth. Łebsko and several other lakes were formerly bays, but have been cut off from
4674-582: The Province of West Prussia . With Prussia, both provinces joined the newly constituted German Empire in 1871. Under German rule, the Polish minority suffered discrimination and oppressive measures aimed at eradicating its culture. Following the German Empire's defeat in World War I, however, eastern Pomerania/ Pomerelia was returned to the rebuilt Polish state, while German-majority Gdańsk/Danzig
4797-522: The United Kingdom and the United States . Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. At the time, it was a collection of dialect groups with some mutual features, but much regional variation was present. Mieszko I , ruler of the Polans tribe from the Greater Poland region, united
4920-957: The University of Szczecin , the University of Gdańsk and the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń , the oldest of which, the University of Greifswald , was founded when Greifswald belonged to Duchy of Pomerania , thus being one of the oldest universities in the world . The technical universities are the Gdańsk University of Technology , West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin, and Koszalin University of Technology . The Stralsund University of Applied Sciences (Hochschule Stralsund) in Stralsund has around 2,400 students. Agriculture primarily consists of raising livestock, forestry, fishery, and
5043-474: The classical languages , have the stress on the antepenultimate (third-from-last) syllable. For example, fizyka ( /ˈfizɨka/ ) ('physics') is stressed on the first syllable. This may lead to a rare phenomenon of minimal pairs differing only in stress placement, for example muzyka /ˈmuzɨka/ 'music' vs. muzyka /muˈzɨka/ – genitive singular of muzyk 'musician'. When additional syllables are added to such words through inflection or suffixation ,
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5166-578: The flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–50) , as well as the expulsion of Ukrainians and Operation Vistula , the 1947 migration of Ukrainian minorities in the Recovered Territories in the west of the country, contributed to the country's linguistic homogeneity. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak Polish somewhat differently, although the differences between modern-day vernacular varieties and standard Polish ( język ogólnopolski ) appear relatively slight. Most of
5289-404: The standard language ; considerable colloquialisms and expressions were directly borrowed from German or Yiddish and subsequently adopted into the vernacular of Polish which is in everyday use. Historically, Polish was a lingua franca , important both diplomatically and academically in Central and part of Eastern Europe . In addition to being the official language of Poland, Polish
5412-483: The województwo pomorskie ([East-] Pomeranian Voivodeship ). The former regional unit stretches however far more south than the historical region, to include the northern part of the historical Neumark ( Dębno , Chojna , Trzcińsko-Zdrój , Myślibórz , Nowogródek Pomorski , Lipiany , Barlinek , Pełczyce , Suchań , Choszczno , Recz , and Drawno ), as well as a strip the historical Greater Poland ( Tuczno , Człopa , Mirosławiec , Wałcz , and Czaplinek ), or even
5535-481: The 10th century, early Polish rulers subdued the region, successfully integrating the eastern part with Poland, while the western part fell under the suzerainty of Denmark and the Holy Roman Empire in the late 12th century. Gdańsk , established during the reign of Mieszko I of Poland has since become Poland's main port (apart from periods of Poland losing control over the region). In the 12th century,
5658-416: The 16th century, which is also regarded as the " Golden Age of Polish literature". The orthography was modified in the 19th century and in 1936. Tomasz Kamusella notes that "Polish is the oldest, non-ecclesiastical, written Slavic language with a continuous tradition of literacy and official use, which has lasted unbroken from the 16th century to this day." Polish evolved into the main sociolect of
5781-486: The 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto (91,810 speakers) and Montreal . The geographical distribution of the Polish language was greatly affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II and Polish population transfers (1944–46) . Poles settled in the " Recovered Territories " in the west and north, which had previously been mostly German -speaking. Some Poles remained in
5904-540: The Amber Museums in Gdańsk and Jarosławiec , and the Museum of Gingerbread in Toruń. There are around 40 museums in the district of Vorpommern-Rügen , the most notable of which are: In the district of Vorpommern-Greifswald are located around 30 museums, among which: There are four traditional (non-profiled and multi-faculty, public research ) universities in the region, namely the University of Greifswald ,
6027-536: The Griffin dukes held also the office of a titular bishop ruling in Cammin's secular territory. In 1650 the last bishop Ernst Bogislaw von Croÿ resigned and the diocese was secularised. With Farther Pomerania it fell to Brandenburg-Prussia forming its Province of Pomerania . The secular territory of the former diocese continued to exist as a prince-bishopric and principality within the Duchy of Pomerania , and
6150-1116: The Guardhouse no. 1 at Westerplatte (a branch of the Museum of Gdańsk), the Museum of Coastal Defence in Hel , the Stutthof Museum in Sztutowo with the branch Piaśnica Museum in Wejherowo , the Museum of the Pomeranian Wall and World War II in Szczecinek , and the Armory Museum in Kłanino . There are also aquaria: the Gdynia Aquarium and the Seal Sanctuary in Hel . Perhaps more unusual museums include
6273-583: The Henryków monastery, noted that "Hoc est in polonico" ("This is in Polish"). The earliest treatise on Polish orthography was written by Jakub Parkosz [ pl ] around 1470. The first printed book in Polish appeared in either 1508 or 1513, while the oldest Polish newspaper was established in 1661. Starting in the 1520s, large numbers of books in the Polish language were published, contributing to increased homogeneity of grammar and orthography. The writing system achieved its overall form in
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#17327654901106396-423: The Museum of Sopot, the Emigration Museum in Gdynia, the Museum of Polish Navy in Gdynia, the Museum of Kociewie in Starogard Gdański, the Museum of Kashubian and Pomeranian Literature and Music in Wejherowo, the Kashubian Museum in Kartuzy, the Central Pomerania Museum in Słupsk , the Darłowo Museum, the Koszalin Museum, the Museum of Polish Arms in Kołobrzeg, the Museum of Archeology and History in Stargard,
6519-433: The Polish (along with Kashubian ) population remained with the Roman Catholic Church . The Thirty Years' War severely ravaged and depopulated narrow Pomerania; few years later this same happened to Pomerelia ( the Deluge ). With the extinction of the Griffin house during the same period, the Duchy of Pomerania was divided between the Swedish Empire and Brandenburg-Prussia in 1648 , while Pomerelia remained in with
6642-405: The Polish Crown. Prussia gained the southern parts of Swedish Pomerania in 1720, invaded and annexed Pomerelia from Poland in 1772 and 1793, and gained the remainder of Swedish Pomerania in 1815 , after the Napoleonic Wars . The former Brandenburg-Prussian Pomerania and the former Swedish parts were reorganized into the Prussian Province of Pomerania , while Pomerelia was made part of
6765-521: The Pomeranian Jews to a reservation near Lublin . The Polish population suffered heavily during the Nazi oppression ; more than 40,000 died in executions, death camps, prisons and forced labour , primarily those who were teachers, businessmen, priests, politicians, former army officers, and civil servants. Thousands of Poles and Kashubians suffered expulsion , their homes taken over by the German military and civil servants, as well as some Baltic Germans resettled there between 1940 and 1943 in accordance with
6888-455: The Pomeranian nobility adopted Lutheranism in 1534 and the last pre-reformatory bishop died in 1544. The Catholic diocese was succeeded by the Pomeranian Evangelical Church and suppressed until 1945, when its new incarnation, the Apostolic Administration of Kamień, Lubusz and the Prelature of Piła was re-established, succeeded by the Diocese of Szczecin-Kamień in 1972, elevated to Archdiocese of Szczecin-Kamień in 1992. From west to east,
7011-503: The Pomeranian universities. Since the late 19th century, tourism has been an important sector of the economy, primarily in the numerous seaside resorts along the coast. The Polish Świnoujście LNG terminal is located in Pomerania. Sports enjoying either great popularity or success in Pomerania are football , basketball , speedway , handball , volleyball and rugby union . Most popular and accomplished football teams are Arka Gdynia , Lechia Gdańsk and Pogoń Szczecin , based in
7134-594: The River ), etc. Pomerania was first mentioned in an imperial document of 1046, referring to a Zemuzil dux Bomeranorum ( Zemuzil , Duke of the Pomeranians). Pomerania is mentioned repeatedly in the chronicles of Adam of Bremen (c. 1070) and Gallus Anonymous (ca. 1113). The territorial designation "Pomerania" lacks a universally accepted definition, since it may refer either to combined Hither and Farther Pomerania only (in German contemporary and historical usage) or to Hither and Farther Pomerania combined with Pomerelia (in Polish contemporary and historical usage). As
7257-671: The Silesian language was recognized by ISO , and was attributed an ISO code of szl. Some additional characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include: Polish linguistics has been characterized by a strong strive towards promoting prescriptive ideas of language intervention and usage uniformity, along with normatively-oriented notions of language "correctness" (unusual by Western standards). Polish has six oral vowels (seven oral vowels in written form), which are all monophthongs , and two nasal vowels . The oral vowels are / i / (spelled i ), / ɨ / (spelled y and also transcribed as /ɘ/ or /ɪ/), / ɛ / (spelled e ), /
7380-432: The Teutonic rule, in German terminology the name of Prussia was also extended to conquered Polish lands like Gdańsk Pomerania , although it was not inhabited by Baltic Prussians but Lechitic Poles. Meanwhile, the Ostsiedlung started to turn Slavic narrow Pomerania into an increasingly German-settled area; the remaining Wends and Polish people, often known as Kashubians , continued to settle within Pomerelia. In 1325
7503-403: The area. Otto died in 1139. Pope Innocent II founded the diocese by a papal bull of 14 October 1140, and made the church of St. Adalbert at Wolin on Wolin island the see of the diocese. In the bull, the new diocese was placed "under the protection of the see of the Holy Peter", thwarting ambitions of the archbishops of Magdeburg and Gniezno , who both wanted to incorporate
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#17327654901107626-447: The bishopric was referred to as "Roman Catholic Diocese of Cammin", while before it was addressed as Pomeranensis ecclesia , Pomeranian diocese. The pope furthermore placed the bishopric as an exempt diocese directly under the Holy See . Since 1208, the bishops held the title Caminensis episcopus . The area of the diocese resembled the area controlled by Wartislaw I and his brother and successor, Ratibor I . The northern border
7749-432: The broad-sense Pomerania, understood as comprising also Pomerelia . Their list is presented below and includes the 14 municipalities in Poland electing a city mayor ( Polish : prezydent miasta ) instead of a town mayor ( Polish : burmistrz ), with 9 of them holding the status of a city with powiat rights ( Polish : miasto na prawach powiatu , an independent city ), as well as the 2 municipalities in Germany holding
7872-485: The cases mentioned above, the letter i if followed by another vowel in the same word usually represents / j / , yet a palatalization of the previous consonant is always assumed. The reverse case, where the consonant remains unpalatalized but is followed by a palatalized consonant, is written by using j instead of i : for example, zjeść , "to eat up". The letters ą and ę , when followed by plosives and affricates, represent an oral vowel followed by
7995-418: The corresponding sentence in modern Polish: Daj, niech ja pomielę, a ty odpoczywaj or Pozwól, że ja będę mełł, a ty odpocznij ; and in English: Come, let me grind, and you take a rest ), written around 1280. The book is exhibited in the Archdiocesal Museum in Wrocław, and as of 2015 has been added to UNESCO 's " Memory of the World " list. The medieval recorder of this phrase, the Cistercian monk Peter of
8118-555: The cultivation of cereals , sugar beets , and potatoes. Industrial food processing is increasingly relevant in the region. Key producing industries are shipyards , mechanical engineering facilities (i.e. renewable energy components), and sugar refineries , along with paper and wood fabricators. Service industries today are an important economical factor in Pomerania, most notably with logistics, information technology, life science , biotechnology , health care, and other high-tech branches often clustering around research facilities of
8241-431: The cultural signatures of the area. The Brazilian city of Pomerode (in the state of Santa Catarina ) was founded by Pomeranian Germans in 1861 and is considered the most typically German of all the German towns of southern Brazil. The German part of Western Pomerania is inhabited by German Pomeranians . In other parts, Poles are the dominant ethnic group since the territorial changes of Poland after World War II , and
8364-421: The descendants of émigrées, most notably in the Americas (e.g. Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Canada). Slovincian was spoken at the Farther Pomeranian –Pomerelian frontier, but is now extinct. At least 50 museums in Poland cover the history of Pomerania, the most important of them being the District Museum in Toruń , the Museum in Grudziądz, the National Museum in Gdańsk , the National Maritime Museum, Gdańsk ,
8487-404: The diocese bordered the dioceses of Schwerin , Havelberg , Brandenburg , Lubusz , Poznań , Gniezno and Włocławek . The cathedral complex in Kamień Pomorski is listed as a Historic Monument of Poland . In 1000, the Diocese of Kołobrzeg was founded by Polish monarch Bolesław I the Brave , covering ecclesiastical authority over the region of Pomerania . Later on, it was suppressed, and
8610-479: The disappearance of yers . Polish can have word-initial and word-medial clusters of up to four consonants, whereas word-final clusters can have up to five consonants. Examples of such clusters can be found in words such as bezwzględny [bɛzˈvzɡlɛndnɨ] ('absolute' or 'heartless', 'ruthless'), źdźbło [ˈʑd͡ʑbwɔ] ('blade of grass'), wstrząs [ˈfstʂɔw̃s] ('shock'), and krnąbrność [ˈkrnɔmbrnɔɕt͡ɕ] ('disobedience'). A popular Polish tongue-twister (from
8733-430: The distinction between regular penultimate and exceptional antepenultimate stress. Another class of exceptions is verbs with the conditional endings -by, -bym, -byśmy , etc. These endings are not counted in determining the position of the stress; for example, zro biłbym ('I would do') is stressed on the first syllable, and zro bi libyśmy ('we would do') on the second. According to prescriptive authorities ,
8856-663: The east. It formerly reached perhaps as far south as the Noteć river, but since the 13th century its southern boundary has been placed further north. Most of the region is coastal lowland, being part of the Central European Plain . Its southern, hilly parts belong to the Baltic Ridge, a belt of terminal moraines formed during the Pleistocene . Within this ridge, a chain of moraine-dammed lakes constitutes
8979-531: The east. The regions east of the Piaśnica river are not considered Pomeranian according to German terminology, but either West Prussian or Pomerelian. Danzig German was hence classified as Low Prussian , like the dialects of East Prussia ( Königsberg ). Those parts of Pomerania that remained German after 1945 are almost entirely located in the Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch area. Only
9102-531: The eastern parts of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth wrote Polish in the Arabic alphabet. The Cyrillic script is used to a certain extent today by Polish speakers in Western Belarus , especially for religious texts. The diacritics used in the Polish alphabet are the kreska (graphically similar to the acute accent ) over the letters ć, ń, ó, ś, ź and through the letter in ł ;
9225-523: The ecclesiastical authority was held by the Archdiocese of Gniezno . After Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth of Poland had conquered Pomerania until 1121/22 , Saint Otto of Bamberg between 1124 and 1128 Christianised the area . Otto's first mission in 1124 followed a failed mission by eremite Bernard in 1122, and was initiated by Bolesław with the approval of both Lothair III, Holy Roman Emperor , and Pope Callixtus II . Otto's second mission in 1128
9348-420: The end of words (where devoicing occurs) and in certain consonant clusters (where assimilation occurs). For details, see Voicing and devoicing in the article on Polish phonology. Most Polish words are paroxytones (that is, the stress falls on the second-to-last syllable of a polysyllabic word), although there are exceptions. Polish permits complex consonant clusters, which historically often arose from
9471-476: The entire country. Polish has traditionally been described as consisting of three to five main regional dialects: Silesian and Kashubian , spoken in Upper Silesia and Pomerania respectively, are thought of as either Polish dialects or distinct languages , depending on the criteria used. Kashubian contains a number of features not found elsewhere in Poland, e.g. nine distinct oral vowels (vs.
9594-578: The episcopal secular state was done from Köslin. In the early 13th century, the Słupsk and Sławno lands passed to the Archdiocese of Gniezno, only to return to the Diocese of Kamień in 1317. The bishops at multiple occasions tried to exclude their secular reign from ducal overlordship by applying for Imperial immediacy . The Pomeranian dukes successfully forestalled these ambitions, and immediacy
9717-485: The expelled Pomeranians found refuge there, later many moved on to other German regions and abroad. Today German Hither Pomerania forms the eastern part of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern , while the Polish part is divided mainly between the West Pomeranian , Pomeranian voivodeships, with their capitals in Szczecin and Gdańsk . During the 1980s, the Solidarity and Die Wende ("the change") movements overthrew
9840-834: The finest collections of medieval art in Poland, and the country's sole copy of the Gutenberg Bible . Medieval open-air museums are the Grodzisko in Sopot and Skansen in Wolin . There are also the Dar Pomorza , ORP Błyskawica and SS Sołdek museum ships . Several museums devoted to World War II history are located in Polish Pomerania, including the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk,
9963-457: The flight and expulsions is disputed, with low-range estimates in the hundreds of thousands (see: Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950) ). The area was resettled primarily with Poles of Polish ethnicity, (some themselves expellees from former eastern Poland ) and some Poles of Ukrainian ethnicity (resettled under Operation Vistula ) and few Polish Jews . Most of Hither or Western Pomerania ( Vorpommern ) remained in Germany, and most of
10086-467: The following table. The following digraphs and trigraphs are used: Voiced consonant letters frequently come to represent voiceless sounds (as shown in the tables); this occurs at the end of words and in certain clusters, due to the neutralization mentioned in the Phonology section above. Occasionally also voiceless consonant letters can represent voiced sounds in clusters. The spelling rule for
10209-574: The former Province of Posen–West Prussia (part of historic Greater Poland ). Under the Nazi government , the persecution of Poles in the German-controlled part of Pomerania intensified. In January 1939, Germany resumed expulsions of Poles and many were also forced to flee. The Sturmabteilung , Schutzstaffel , Hitler Youth and Bund Deutscher Osten launched attacks on Polish institutions, schools and activists. From May to August 1939,
10332-552: The historical region of Hither Pomerania today, while the Szczecin metropolitan area reaches even further. Pomerelia is dominated by the Tricity metropolitan area (Pomeranian Voivodeship) with its population in 2012 estimated at least at 1,035,000 and the area at 1,332,51 km, encompassing the Tricity itself with a population of 748,986 combining the eponymous three cities of Gdańsk (population 460,427), Gdynia (population 248,726) and Sopot (population 38,217), as well as
10455-665: The historically Brandenburgian headwaters of the Uecker river ( Prenzlau ). In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern , however, the dominating Low German standard version is the Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch dialect, and Central Pomeranian texts are often rewritten. East Pomeranian, Low Prussian , and Standard German were dominating east of the Oder-Neisse line before most of its speakers were expelled after World War II . Kashubian and East Low German are also spoken by
10578-548: The language spoken at home, which is about 1.4% of people who speak languages other than English , 0.25% of the US population, and 6% of the Polish-American population. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census (over 50%) were found in three states: Illinois (185,749), New York (111,740), and New Jersey (74,663). Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services (which has
10701-453: The largest of which are Rügen , the largest island in Germany; Usedom /Uznam, and Wolin , the largest island in Poland. The region has a rich and complicated political and demographic history at the intersection of several cultures. Pomerania is the area along the Bay of Pomerania of the Baltic Sea between the rivers Recknitz , Trebel , Tollense and Augraben in the west and Vistula in
10824-538: The later territory of the Duchy of Pomerania by the exclusion of the Principality of Rügen and inclusion of Circipania , Mecklenburg-Strelitz , and the northern Uckermark and New March . The diocese was rooted in the Conversion of Pomerania by Otto of Bamberg in 1124 and 1128 at the behest of Polish ruler Bolesław III Wrymouth , and was dissolved during the Protestant Reformation , when
10947-487: The latter. In the following, the bishops extended their secular reign which soon comprised the Kolberg (now Kołobrzeg), Köslin (also Cöslin, now Koszalin) and Bublitz (now Bobolice) areas. When in 1276 they became the sovereign of the town of Kolberg also, they moved their residence there. Bishop Hermann von Gleichen granted town rights to Köslin (Koszalin) in 1266 and Massow (Maszewo) in 1278. The administration of
11070-439: The letter y . The predominant stress pattern in Polish is penultimate stress – in a word of more than one syllable, the next-to-last syllable is stressed. Alternating preceding syllables carry secondary stress, e.g. in a four-syllable word, where the primary stress is on the third syllable, there will be secondary stress on the first. Each vowel represents one syllable, although the letter i normally does not represent
11193-850: The line of the princes of Rügen died out, and the principality was inherited by the Griffins . In 1466, with the Teutonic Order 's defeat in the Thirteen Years' War , Pomerelia became again part of the Polish Crown and formed the Pomeranian Voivodeship within the provinces of Royal Prussia and Greater Poland . While the German population in the Duchy of Pomerania adopted the Protestant reformation in 1534,
11316-431: The middle aged and young speak vernaculars close to standard Polish, while the traditional dialects are preserved among older people in rural areas. First-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty recognizing the regional and social differences. The modern standard dialect , often termed as "correct Polish", is spoken or at least understood throughout
11439-460: The most widely spoken variant of Polish across the country, and most dialects stopped being the form of Polish spoken in villages. Poland is one of the most linguistically homogeneous European countries; nearly 97% of Poland's citizens declare Polish as their first language . Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in areas which were once administered or occupied by Poland, notably in neighboring Lithuania , Belarus , and Ukraine . Polish
11562-599: The name Tarzan . Principality of Cammin The Bishopric of Cammin (also Kammin, Kamień Pomorski) was both a former Roman Catholic diocese in the Duchy of Pomerania from 1140 to 1544, and a secular territory of the Holy Roman Empire ( Prince-Bishopric ) in the Kołobrzeg area from 1248 to 1650. The diocese comprised the areas controlled by the House of Pomerania in the 12th century, thus differing from
11685-561: The new diocese as suffragan into their archdioceses. Adalbert , a former chaplain of Saint Otto who had participated in Otto's mission as an interpreter and assistant, was consecrated bishop at Rome. Adalbert and Ratibor I founded Stolpe Abbey at the side of Wartislaw I's assassination by a pagan in 1153, the first monastery in Pomerania. The bishops held the title of Pomeranorum or Pomeranorum et Leuticorum episcopus , referring to
11808-649: The nobles in Poland–Lithuania in the 15th century. The history of Polish as a language of state governance begins in the 16th century in the Kingdom of Poland . Over the later centuries, Polish served as the official language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , Congress Poland , the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria , and as the administrative language in the Russian Empire 's Western Krai . The growth of
11931-510: The northwest of Pomeranian Voivodeship. Farther Pomerania in turn comprises several other historical subregions, most notably the former Principality of Cammin , the Nowogard County, and the Słupsk and Sławno Land . The Lębork and Bytów Land is considered a part of Pomerelia ( Kashubia ) by the Polish historiography, and of Farther Pomerania by the German historiography. Parts of Pomerania and surrounding regions have constituted
12054-673: The others being Czech orthography and Croatian orthography , the last of these being a 19th-century invention trying to make a compromise between the first two. Kashubian uses a Polish-based system, Slovak uses a Czech-based system, and Slovene follows the Croatian one; the Sorbian languages blend the Polish and the Czech ones. Historically, Poland's once diverse and multi-ethnic population utilized many forms of scripture to write Polish. For instance, Lipka Tatars and Muslims inhabiting
12177-401: The palatal sounds / ɕ / , / ʑ / , / tɕ / , / dʑ / and / ɲ / is as follows: before the vowel i the plain letters s, z, c, dz, n are used; before other vowels the combinations si, zi, ci, dzi, ni are used; when not followed by a vowel the diacritic forms ś, ź, ć, dź, ń are used. For example, the s in siwy ("grey-haired"), the si in siarka ("sulfur") and
12300-520: The previously Polish-ruled territories in the east that were annexed by the USSR , resulting in the present-day Polish-speaking communities in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, although many Poles were expelled from those areas to areas within Poland's new borders. To the east of Poland, the most significant Polish minority lives in a long strip along either side of the Lithuania - Belarus border. Meanwhile,
12423-656: The regions between the Zarow river in the west and the Oder river in the east are historically part of the Central Pomeranian dialect region: the southern shores of the Szczecin Lagoon ( Ueckermünde ), the towns along the Uecker and Randow rivers, and those parts of Pomerania that are now in Brandenburg ( Gartz and the northern districts of Schwedt/Oder ). Central Pomeranian is also spoken along
12546-559: The resulting Polonization . Kashubians , descendants of the medieval West Slavic Pomeranians , are numerous in rural Pomerelia . German Hither Pomerania had a population of about 470,000 in 2012 (districts of Vorpommern-Rügen and Vorpommern-Greifswald combined) – while the Polish districts of Hither Pomerania had a population of about 580,000 in 2012 ( Szczecin and Świnoujście cities with powiat rights , Police County , as well as Goleniów Wolin and Międzyzdroje gminas combined). So overall, about 1.15 million people live in
12669-473: The ruling of Samborides , was a part of Poland. Pomerania, during its alliance in the Holy Roman Empire , shared borders with West Slavic state Oldenburg, as well as Poland and the expanding Margraviate of Brandenburg . In the early 14th century the Teutonic Knights invaded and annexed Pomerelia from Poland into their monastic state , which already included historical Prussia . As a result of
12792-540: The same applies to the first and second person plural past tense endings -śmy, -ście , although this rule is often ignored in colloquial speech (so zro bi liśmy 'we did' should be prescriptively stressed on the second syllable, although in practice it is commonly stressed on the third as zrobi li śmy ). These irregular stress patterns are explained by the fact that these endings are detachable clitics rather than true verbal inflections: for example, instead of ko go zoba czy liście? ('whom did you see?') it
12915-574: The sea. The easternmost coastline along the Gdańsk Bay (with the Bay of Puck ) and Vistula Lagoon , has the Hel Peninsula and the Vistula peninsula jutting out into the Baltic. The Pomeranian region has the following administrative divisions: The bulk of Farther Pomerania is included within the modern West Pomeranian Voivodeship, but its easternmost parts (the Słupsk area) now constitute
13038-524: The seacoast east of Rowokół [ pl ] . When Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa deposed Henry the Lion in 1180 he granted Pomerania under Bogislaw I the status of an Imperial duchy, but from 1185 it was a Danish fief until the 1227 Battle of Bornhöved . In 1248, the Cammin bishops and the Pomeranian dukes had interchanged the terrae Stargard and Kolberg, leaving the bishops in charge of
13161-661: The sense of the current administrative units. Settlement in the area called Pomerania for the last 1,000 years started by the end of the Vistula Glacial Stage , some 13,000 years ago. Archeological traces have been found of various cultures during the Stone and Bronze Age , Baltic peoples , Germanic peoples and Veneti during the Iron Age and, in the Dark Ages , West Slavic tribes and Vikings . Starting in
13284-410: The series of affricate and palatal consonants that resulted from four Proto-Slavic palatalizations and two further palatalizations that took place in Polish. The full set of consonants, together with their most common spellings, can be presented as follows (although other phonological analyses exist): Neutralization occurs between voiced – voiceless consonant pairs in certain environments, at
13407-506: The six of standard Polish) and (in the northern dialects) phonemic word stress, an archaic feature preserved from Common Slavic times and not found anywhere else among the West Slavic languages . However, it was described by some linguists as lacking most of the linguistic and social determinants of language-hood. Many linguistic sources categorize Silesian as a regional language separate from Polish, while some consider Silesian to be
13530-440: The status of a district-belonging city (German: Große kreisangehörige Stadt ), as no city of the German part of Pomerania holds currently any higher status, such as a partially of fully independent city (German: Große selbständige Stadt , Kreisfreie Stadt , or Stadtkreis ), or a city-state (German: Stadtstaat ). Polish is the dominating language in the Polish part of Pomerania. Kashubian dialects are also spoken by
13653-494: The stress normally becomes regular. For example, uniwersytet ( /uɲiˈvɛrsɨtɛt/ , 'university') has irregular stress on the third (or antepenultimate) syllable, but the genitive uniwersytetu ( /uɲivɛrsɨˈtɛtu/ ) and derived adjective uniwersytecki ( /uɲivɛrsɨˈtɛt͡skʲi/ ) have regular stress on the penultimate syllables. Loanwords generally become nativized to have penultimate stress. In psycholinguistic experiments, speakers of Polish have been demonstrated to be sensitive to
13776-662: The three largest cities. Among the most successful Polish basketball teams are the Arka Gdynia men's and women's teams. Other popular men's clubs are Czarni Słupsk , Spójnia Stargard , Trefl Sopot , Wilki Morskie Szczecin , Polpharma Starogard Gdański . The most successful speedway club is KS Toruń , while other popular teams are Wybrzeże Gdańsk and GKM Grudziądz . Polish language Polish ( endonym : język polski , [ˈjɛ̃zɘk ˈpɔlskʲi] , polszczyzna [pɔlˈʂt͡ʂɘzna] or simply polski , [ˈpɔlskʲi] )
13899-526: The tribal territories of the Pomeranians and Luticians merged in the Duchy of Pomerania . In the late 12th century the territory of the Griffin dukes was raided several times by Saxon troops of Henry the Lion and Danish forces under King Valdemar I . The initial see of in Wolin was moved to Grobe Abbey on the island of Usedom after 1150. At the same time Wolin economically decayed and
14022-563: The vowel i is changed to y , e.g. Syria , Sybir , synchronizacja , Syrakuzy . The following table shows the correspondence between the sounds and spelling: Digraphs and trigraphs are used: Similar principles apply to / kʲ / , / ɡʲ / , / xʲ / and /lʲ/ , except that these can only occur before vowels, so the spellings are k, g, (c)h, l before i , and ki, gi, (c)hi, li otherwise. Most Polish speakers, however, do not consider palatalization of k, g, (c)h or l as creating new sounds. Except in
14145-620: The western part belongs to the German states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg . Pomerania's historical border in the west is the Mecklenburg-Western Pomeranian border Urstromtal , which now constitutes the border between the Mecklenburgian and Pomeranian part of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, while it is bounded by the Vistula River in the east. The easternmost part of Pomerania
14268-443: The word, the phoneme / x / can be spelt h or ch , the phoneme / ʐ / can be spelt ż or rz , and / u / can be spelt u or ó . In several cases it determines the meaning, for example: może ("maybe") and morze ("sea"). In occasional words, letters that normally form a digraph are pronounced separately. For example, rz represents /rz/ , not / ʐ / , in words like zamarzać ("freeze") and in
14391-520: Was defined by the coastline and the border with the Principality of Rügen ( Ryck river). In the West, the diocese included Circipania up to Güstrow . In the Southwest, the border of the diocese ran south to a line Güstrow- Ivenack - Altentreptow in a near straight west–east orientation, then took a sharp southward turn west of Ueckermünde to include Prenzlau . The border then turned east to meet
14514-571: Was devastated by Danish expeditions, which contributed to the move to Grobe. The see was again moved to Cammin, now Kamień Pomorski, in 1175, where a chapter was founded for the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist . All this time, the question of subordinance of the Pomeranian diocese as suffragan to an archdiocese remained unsolved. Since 1188, when the pope accepted the move of the see,
14637-419: Was granted only temporarily in 1345. The addition of secular territory would be the basis for later turning the status of the diocese into a prince-bishopric . The episcopal territory of secular reign remained a subfief of ducal Pomerania, and did not become an immediately imperial fief. The Protestant Reformation reached Pomerania in the early 16th century , mostly starting from the cities, and Lutheranism
14760-475: Was initiated by Lothair after a pagan reaction. Wartislaw I, Duke of Pomerania supported and aided both missions. Between the missions, he had expanded his duchy westward , up to Güstrow . These former Lutician areas were not subject to Polish overlordship, but claimed by the Holy Roman Empire . Otto during his lifetime did not succeed in founding a diocese, caused by a conflict of the archbishops of Magdeburg and Gniezno about ecclesiastical hegemony in
14883-404: Was made the Duchy of Pomerania 's religion in 1534 by the diet of Treptow upo Rega (Trzebiatów) . The Pomeranian reformator Johannes Bugenhagen , appointed bishop of Cammin by 1544, did not assume the office, the cathedral chapter elected instead Bartholomaeus Swawe , the former chancellor of Duke Barnim XI of Pomerania-Stettin , who promptly renounced Cammin's imperial immediacy . From 1556 on
15006-1210: Was the location of a Germanisation camp for kidnapped Polish children . The Polish resistance movement was active both in the pre-war Polish part and the pre-war German part of Pomerania. After Nazi Germany 's defeat in World War II, the German–Polish border was shifted west to the Oder–Neisse line , and all of Pomerania was in the Soviet Occupation Zone . The German inhabitants of the former eastern territories of Germany and Poles of German ethnicity from Pomerelia were expelled . Between 1945 and 1948, millions of ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) and German citizens (Reichsdeutsche), were removed from former German territory now governed by Poland and other Eastern European countries. Many German civilians were sent to internment and labor camps where they were used as forced labor as part of German reparations to countries in Eastern Europe. The death toll attributable to
15129-464: Was transformed into the independent Free City of Danzig . In the interbellum, the border with Poland and the creation of what German propaganda called the " Polish Corridor " were often contested in Germany. Irredentist claims towards Poland were one of the factors contributing to the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany. In 1938 Germany's Province of Pomerania was expanded to include northern parts of
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